HISTORY OF MARZIPAN
WE
SANTO TOMÉ SINCE 1856
Handmade production
ALMONDS, SUGAR,
HONEY AND EGGS
The marzipans of Obrador de Santo Tomé are distinguished by their careful craftsmanship and because they use only natural and top quality ingredients.
They reject all kinds of preservatives to offer a fresh and natural product, with the unique flavor that distinguishes it.
Its ingredients, rooted in the Mediterranean diet, make it a healthy and very energetic food, a good complement to an active life. But it is also a delicious pleasure, even for the most demanding palates.
BASIC INGREDIENTS
These are the basic ingredients of our main products; natural ingredients, exquisitely selected from the best harvests of the Spanish countryside.
*Levantine almonds, carefully selected and cleaned.
*Refined sugar of extreme cleanliness and whiteness
*Pure bee honey, genuinely alcarria.
*Eggs from farms near our bakery that supply us every day with the freshest product, after a scrupulous selection.
QUALITY AND TECHNOLOGY
In Santo Tomé we have been working for more than 160 years to maintain and surpass a line of quality that characterizes us in all our products and services.
Our efforts have not been in vain and this is demonstrated by our customers every day entrusting us with their orders.
Our team of professionals works constantly to develop and offer a better service and a better customer service, therefore within our quality policy the most demanding and rigorous Quality Control Systems are implemented: Food Safety Management System UNE-EN ISO 22000:2018certified by AENOR and the I.G.P. I.G.P. Marzipan from Toledo
HISTORY OF MARZIPAN
SANTO TOMÉ SINCE 1856
THE STORY
TOLEDO MARZIPAN AND ITS HISTORY
The Marzipan of Toledo and its History. La Confitería de Santo Tomé
© of the edition: Antonio Pareja Editor/Santo Tomé
© of the text: Rafael del Cerro Malagón
- Mariano García Ruipérez
- Antonio Pareja Jiménez
- Enrique Sánchez Lubián
© of the photographs: Antonio L. Pareja
- Antonio Pareja Archive
- Archive Santo Tomé Confectionery
- Provincial Historical Archive of Toledo
- Municipal Archives of Toledo
- Regional Archive of the Community of Madrid, Photographic Collection
- Juan Ignacio de Mesa
- Barcelona Design Museum
- Prado Museum
- National Art Museum of Catalonia
- Reina Sofia National Museum of Art.
BETWEEN HISTORY AND LEGEND
CONTROVERSIAL ORIGINS
Legend and reality are intermingled, which makes it difficult to rigorously establish the moment when marzipan began to form part of Toledo's gastronomy.
Products derived from the combination of almonds, sugar and honey, as well as other additives, have been part of Mediterranean gastronomic culture for many centuries. Its use in Spain spread as a result of the influence of oriental cuisine.
THE BEGINNING
BACKGROUND
Legend has it that due to the incursions of the Almohads, who devastated many lands in the south of Castile, the population took refuge in Toledo. There, the situation was already delicate due to the lack of food, which together with the increase of inhabitants, produced a great famine.
The importance of the Church's wealth, which brought it numerous rents, not only in money but also in land and its products, meant that there were large reserves of almonds from the Cigarrales Toledanos.
It was decided to mix this fruit with the amount of sugar they had, obtaining a product with a pleasant taste and great nutritional capacity, with which the hunger of the population was alleviated.
MIDDLE AGE
1212: MARZIPAN
It is in the time of Alfonso VIII when the term "Mazapán" appears expressly.
The incursions of the Almohads gave rise to population movements, who abandoned their ravaged lands to take refuge in Toledo, causing supply problems.
History and legend come together here, but it is debatable whether its origin was at that time, since it has antecedents in the history of the city. But sugar was a scarce and expensive commodity, only within the reach of a few and, probably, more used in pharmaceuticals to enhance the flavor of some medicines.
But the time comes when Toledo acquires great prestige in its confectioners' guild, from whose ranks emerge the most famous confectioners of the kingdoms of Spain. The rigor with which the recipes for the elaboration of marzipan, among other confections, are maintained, increases the fame of Toledo marzipan, which is reaching the tables of those who can pay for a product that is still expensive due to the scarcity of sugar production.
MODERN AGE
1520: THE FORMULAS OF RUPERTO DE NOLA
In 1520 a book written by Ruperto de Nola, cook of the Lord Don Fernando of Naples, was published by the Toledan printers. Published for the first time in Barcelona in 1520 in Catalan and later the first Castilian edition was released in Toledo in the same year.
In this book, formulas are given for the elaboration of Marzipan, which spread to other parts of Europe, where a product of the same name, although not of the same composition, was already being elaborated.
RENAISSANCE
1592: THE FOUR BOOKS OF THE ART OF CONFECTIONERY
"Los cuatro libros del arte de la confitería", title by Miguel de Baeza from Toledo and published in 1592, is considered "the masterpiece of Spanish Renaissance confectionery".
It was edited by the publisher Antonio Pareja, making the study and transcription of the original Mariano García Ruipérez and María del Prado Olivares Sánchez. Subsequently, in 2014 it was sponsored by Santo Tomé.
MODERN MARZIPAN
1613: THE GUILD
In 1613 Gaspar de Atienza and other masters of the Toledan Confectionery, wrote and accepted the ordinances to become a Guild.
They established their domicile in Martín Gamero Street (called Rua Nova at the time) and developed the ways and forms for the elaboration of Toledo sweets in an ordinance.
It is important to highlight what is stated in clauses 16, 17 and 19:
Clause 16 item "We order that the marzipans that are made be made with joropados and Valencia almonds and white sugar and no other way under penalty that whoever does otherwise, incurs the penalty of one thousand maravedies for each time and the loss of such marzipans".
Clause 17 item: "We order that the rooting that is done, even if it is common, shall have peeled almonds and shall not be done in any other way, under penalty of forfeiture of the almonds and one thousand maravedies each time".
Clause 19 item: "We order that the cork that is made be made with pure white sugar paste in a mixture of something else and that the brown paste that must be inside be made of almonds from Valencia or white sugar, and whoever makes it in any other way shall incur the loss of it and 2,000 maravedies.
These clauses established the criteria to mark the quality of the product, as well as sanctions for those who transgressed the ordinance and took away the prestige of the Guild.
A few years later (1.617), King Philip III asked the Guild of confectioners for a "rosca de Mazapán" to take it to Portugal. Likewise, in the visits of the monarch and his wife Queen Margaret of Austria to Toledo, they used to have Marzipan for dessert, the quality of which the Guild, constituted a few years before, was responsible for.